Exiting from Lockdowns: Early Evidence from Reopenings in Europe

Jeffrey Franks, Bertrand Gruss, Carlos Mulas-Granados, Manasa Patnam and Sebastian Weber

No 2020/218, IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund

Abstract: European authorities introduced stringent lockdown measures in early 2020 to reduce the transmission of COVID-19. As the first wave of infection curves flattened and the outbreak appeared controlled, most countries started to reopen their economies albeit using diverse strategies. This paper introduces a novel daily database of sectoral reopening measures in Europe during the first-wave and documents that country plans differed significantly in terms of timing, pace, and sequencing of sectoral reopening measures. We then show that reopenings led to a recovery in mobility—a proxy for economic activity—but at the cost of somewhat higher infections. However, the experience with reopening reveals some original dimensions of this trade-off. First, the increase in COVID-19 infections after reopening appears less severe in fatality rates. Second, a given reopening step is associated with a worse reinfection outcome in countries that started reopening earlier on the infection curve or that opened all sectors at a fast pace in a relatively short time. Finally, while opening measures tend to have an amplification effect on subsequent cases when a large fraction of the economy is already open, this effect appears heterogenous across sectors.

Keywords: Pandemics; Lockdowns; Europe; WP; reopening policy; infection curve; infection amplification risk; infection dynamics; infection-death curve; outcome variable; infection evolution; infection variable; infection situation; effect of reopening; COVID-19; Public expenditure review (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33
Date: 2020-10-21
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cwa and nep-hea
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=49826 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2020/218

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/pubs/ord_info.htm

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC USA. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Akshay Modi (amodi@imf.org).